Posts Tagged ‘shiro nakamura’

Nissan offers up a hint of where its future products' designs will be evolving.

Nissan has been rolling out an assortment of new products and doesn’t show any signs of easing off on this vehicle blitz anytime soon, not according to senior executives gathered this month to give automotive journalists a heads-up on the company’s plans.

That includes a quick look at one particularly intriguing model that Nissan’s global design and creative director Shiro Nakamura revealed will make its formal debut at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show next January. Nakamura said the concept vehicle will reveal the “future design direction” for the Nissan brand.

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Though shown only as a rendering, the brief glimpse came as a surprise not only to the journalists assembled in Southern California but apparently to other Nissan staff who had no idea what Nakamura had in store.

While the plan still needs final government approval, BMW is set to become the latest maker to open an automotive assembly plant in Brazil. The new factory is expected to produce about 30,000 vehicles a year once it opens in 2014 in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Brazil is a relative latecomer to booming Brazil which, depending on how you measure it, has become the world’s third or fourth-largest national automotive market. But it’s by no means the only global automaker eyeing additional opportunities. An even bigger Nissan factory, located near Rio, is also set to open in 2014.

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The pace of competition is readily apparent at this week’s Sao Paulo Auto Show in the Portugese-speaking nation’s biggest – and most traffic clogged city. Virtually every major automaker, including the “usual suspects” from Europe, the U.S., Japan and South Korea, as well as an assortment of Chinese brands, are competing for the eye of Brazil’s rapidly expanding middle-class.

The Infiniti Emerg-E concept battery car makes it North American debut in Pebble Beach.

Infiniti will bring its first battery-electric luxury car to market sometime in 2014, the maker confirmed, with the prototype introducing a new charging system that will no longer require an owner to plug it into a wall charger.

In fact, the Infiniti LE will be able to park itself in precisely the right spot over the new induction charging system’s special mat, an executive told TheDetroitBureau.com.

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Meanwhile, the maker continues to study whether to add a second, even more sporty battery-car model to its line-up, one that would be based on the well-received Infiniti Emerg-E concept vehicle that made its splashy debut at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year.

The face of the future or just a fantasy in chrome? That’s the question Nissan left unanswered following its Wednesday news conference at the L.A. Auto Show.

The strikingly distinctive four-door Ellure was one of three debuts on the Japanese maker’s stand. But where the 2011 Quest and Murano CrossCabriolet will be rolling into showrooms in the months to come, U.S. Chief Executive Carlos Tavares insisted the Nissan Ellure is “a pure concept.”

The Nissan Ellure is Nakamura’s latest pet project, and with those of the past, the diminutive stylist has found a distinctive balance between traditional Japanese design forms – particularly noticeable in the headlights – as well as both retro and futuristic elements.

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The overall look reveals a new “super-sculpted” design language distinguished by the Nissan Ellure’s broad shoulders and slightly down-swept character line. One of the heritage elements is the use of rear “suicide” doors.

“Some of the design cues” will clearly reappear, Nakamura acknowledged, clearly pleased by the attention his new concept generated during the Nissan news conference.